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| lshap |
 Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 4:54 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4246
Location: Montreal
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Since she can breath on her own the question becomes about quality of life, rather than life support.
Since something as ephemeral as 'quality' is so personal, her fate should be decided by those who are most believably speaking on her behalf. The husband? The parents? Damned if I know, but I hope people keep their eye on the ball and try to interpret what her values would have been, and NOT get sidetracked by the values of politicians. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 4:56 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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I wrote a couple of paragraphs which got swallowed up by the firewall I'm behind. The upshot: while I agree with Kate that this looks like the parents and the husband basically being at war, I completely disagree with how this has been turned into a political circus in Washington. I don't think that 7 years and 19 judges means that no one has been paying proper attention to Terry Schiavo's rights, and it sounds like the federal government sees the husband's decision as correct as long as it's the "right" decision - an extremely troubling development.
Joe, without more information, it just sounds like your friend is following somebody's rumor mill. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:03 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12902
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I think there are enough distortions on both sides to make it difficult to have an informed opinion. The National Review, which takes the side of keeping her alive, admits that her cerebrum is deteriorating and being filled with cerebrospinal fluid, and if that's true, I don't see any hope that she'll recover outside of divine intervention. The parents want her back so much they're probably seeing hopeful signs where there aren't any. I'd probably do the same if I was in their shoes. It's probably time to let her go as her husband, doctors and several courts have said. If she had had a living will, she would have been gone a decade ago.
But it's not my decision to make. Congress has no right to interfere, nor the President, nor you nor me, nor the people circulating petitions. If I find myself making a life-or-death decision about my parents, the last thing I need is some glory-seeking Congressman with no stake in or intimate knowledge of the situation sticking his fat butt in. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:04 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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What I find so incredibly horrible about this is that they have now pulled the tube twice and may put it back in twice - that to me is torturous.
And the gov't should stay the fuck out of it. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:24 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| What I don't understand it, why doesn't the guy just surrender legal obligation to the parents, a burdon they are totally willing to accept? He'd be free of financial responsibility. As for getting on with his life, he seems to have done that already, having moved in with a woman and had a couple of kids with her. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:25 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Lady,
He's a very well informed guy, generally, but he's also pretty conservative. So he may be looking at only one side of the issue. The fact is, I haven't followed the case at all, so all I can say is he sounds well-infomred on the issue. I dunno. |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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| That's a very good question, Joe, one that I haved asked as well. One coworker has a very harsh take on it - she is still worth some 700,000 dollars from a law suit. Notice he has not gotten a divorce and yet has a common law wife. A more generous take is that perhaps she really did verbally tell him once that she did not want to be kept alive and so, because he truly loves her - is fighting for her. No one really knows. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| He did win a lawsuit for millions supposedly to go toward keeping her alive, right? And having won, hasn't spent much of it on actually doing that, indeed has done a 180 and claimed she would want to die? It sounds fishy to me. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8250
Location: Salt Lake City
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Joe Vitus wrote: What I don't understand it, why doesn't the guy just surrender legal obligation to the parents, a burdon they are totally willing to accept? He'd be free of financial responsibility. As for getting on with his life, he seems to have done that already, having moved in with a woman and had a couple of kids with her.
That's the question that I ask, although if he is holding onto the issue for the pure sake of ensuring the rights of Terri and her wishes, I have to give him some credit for that.
It's a condundrum that I don't envy, but as I've said, as well as others, it's not for the government to decide. If Terri's parents are involved in getting Bush and his sheep involved, then shame on them.
It's sad it's come to this.
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Okay, I'm confused. Why did he sue for money to sustain her, if before this happened he knew she didn't want to be sustained? Is his argument that he didn't realize there was no way the money could help bring her back, and realizing that afterwards, he felt there was no choice but to stop feeding her? |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:54 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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He may be well-informed in general, Joe, but when people say
Quote: The guy apparantly told a nurse something like "I just want this bitch to die."
without being there and/or without this statement turning up on tape (in full context), that's a red flag that the train's running off the fact tracks - to me, anyway. He doesn't know, and he has no way of knowing - and reading it in the press doesn't prove much of anything (because it could be a plant, and it could be as simple as he was aggravated at the time and said something stupid).
I think there's an excellent chance that the husband isn't as selfless as he might seem, and that her family is deluding themselves - but it almost doesn't matter. This has been through the courts for a number of years and they've spent way more time determining what was going on in this case than anyone randomly reading now. Who is going to be in a better position to decide who should make this decision? Not the armchair quarterbacks or the distant politicians, most of whom do not understand the medical issues in the least. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:44 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12902
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Dick Armey and Don Nickles are on campus Wednesday. There goes the neighborhood. (Could be worse, though. Could be Tom Delay and Trent Lott.) |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:19 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| Perhaps people should actually watch the news or read the paper before they start quoting their friends on such important issues. Hearsay in a case like this is incredibly dangerous and, in my opinion, completely sloppy to even quote such garbage anywhere, including here. The lawsuit did not award "millions", it was for $750,000 and, according to ABC News tonight, almost all of that money has been used for what it was awarded for, care for his wife. It's so easy for people to sit in front of their computers slinging shit at something they even admit to knowing nothing about. It's almost as bad as those no-life cretons standing vigil outside the guy's house with red tape over their mouths. Nobody knows what the husband has been through the last 5 years but him. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:24 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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ehle64 wrote: Perhaps people should actually watch the news or read the paper before they start quoting their friends on such important issues. Hearsay in a case like this is incredibly dangerous and, in my opinion, completely sloppy to even quote such garbage anywhere, including here. The lawsuit did not award "millions", it was for $750,000 and, according to ABC News tonight, almost all of that money has been used for what it was awarded for, care for his wife. It's so easy for people to sit in front of their computers slinging shit at something they even admit to knowing nothing about. It's almost as bad as those no-life cretons standing vigil outside the guy's house with red tape over their mouths. Nobody knows what the husband has been through the last 5 years but him.
Totally agree. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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So do I. But I am pleased to see the issue discussed.
I strongly agree with Lorne about quality of life. And I strongly suspect that a women with little or no brain function has lost any meaningful quality of life. That this president has seen fit to fly back to DC, in order to sign a law to force a feeding tube down this woman's throat or nose is abhorant.
This is a sad day for individual human rights in this country.
RIP Bobby Short. |
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